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Any liberals or Democrats who are patting themselves on the back for their protests and their resistance for causing Trump and Ryan’s healthcare plan to fail need to shut the fuck up and realize that they had fuck all to do with it.

Trump and Ryan’s healthcare legislation failed because there were around 30 men who were too conservative on the issue—so conservative that many fellow Republicans couldn’t support what they wanted. The bill was impossible to pass. If Trump/Ryan caved to these ultra-conservative jackalopes, they would have lost the votes they needed from the more moderate conservative jackalopes. Read about it here in pretty serious detail. So they tried to strong-arm the ultra conservatives into caving, and those jackalopes told Trump and Ryan to go kick rocks.

This rift in the Republican Party is what killed the bill. This is a purely self-inflicted wound.

You think any of those assholes gave a shit that people knitted hats and showed up by the millions to protest a pussy grabbing piece of human shit? No. They killed the bill because some men are so committed to eliminating government spending that they honestly don’t mind killing tens of thousands of American citizens.

If I wanted to be charitable, I’d say that the protests and the resistance and all that made it impossible for the moderate Republicans to go all-in with the additional cuts. But, that charitable characterization is wrong when you consider the fact that those moderate Republicans were still behind the bill even though it only had a 17% approval rating from Americans. At the same time, 56% of Americans disapproved of it. These fucking moderate animals were prepared to vote for a bill that was 40 points below water! And you want me to believe that the reason they were going to walk if the ultra-conservatives got what they wanted was because it would be too unpopular? Sorry. I’m not buying it. That shit doesn’t make any sense if they were willing to vote for something that was already really unpopular.

So yeah. I was at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. I marched to Trump Tower. I showed up to JFK and waited until the place flooded with more police than demonstrators. My time wasn’t a waste, and if another demonstration like those shapes up, I’ll go again. But I’m not under any illusion that what I did led to the death of this bill. The people who killed this bill do not care about me. They don’t really care about anyone. That’s what killed it.

My cousin shared this article from Breitbart with me. It’s about the IRS scandal and how the IRS targeted Tea Party or other “conservative” groups for extra questioning and “intimidation.” From the way it looks, this could be a legitimate scandal for Obama’s administration, and it’s going to have legs according to Rachel Maddow. I’ve personally noticed over the last week that all of a sudden, many GOP and conservative websites had been doing some really good reporting on this. They cite legitimate sources, they use media reports (without all of a sudden talking about how the media is terrible), and they stick to the facts. Honestly, I really started to believe Obama and his administration could be in some serious trouble. If the right wing media doesn’t have to make stuff up to make you look like a criminal, you probably did something wrong.

This is the IRS I grew up with.

But then I read the Breitbart piece my cousin shared. Now, it claims that the New York Times (iknowritetehgraylady!!!!) basically attacks the Obama administration. According to Breitbart, the NYT “in no uncertain terms and with no hedging…reports that the Obama administration was aware of the fact that the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups as far back as June of 2012.” That’s a pretty heavy claim, and knowing the Times as well as I do (I’ll admit that they’re unquestionably liberal and they soft-pedal anything that hurts liberals or progressives when they can get away with it), I was surprised to hear that the Times would go all in against the administration like that. So, I kept reading. In the Breitbart piece (linked above), they say that the Times reported this:

The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.

The inspector general gave Republicans some fodder Friday when he divulged that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel he was auditing the I.R.S.’s screening of politically active groups seeking tax exemptions on June 4, 2012. He told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly after,” he said. That meant Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.

Two problems here with Breitbart’s reporting. One, the paragraph on nytimes.com as of this writing, and even the paragraph Breitbart provides, does not report that the IRS was targeting Tea Party or conservative groups. It says “politically active groups,” which could be anyone from the Tea Party to Planned Parenthood. Claiming that the NYT declared in “no uncertain terms” that the administration knew about the IRS targeting the Tea Party is factually inaccurate, and I all I had to do was read the paragraph they used as evidence.

The second problem here is, let’s say I grant that the administration WAS aware of an investigation into the IRS’s conduct vis a vis Tea Party groups: what does that mean exactly? So the admin was aware of an investigation. If the administration tried to STOP that investigation, then you have a scandal, and a potentially massive one, I would say. But, if someone tells you, “Hey, we’re investigating this thing,” and your response is, “Okay cool. Let me know how it goes,” that’s about as scandalous as a baby farting in church. From the same NYT article Breitbart cited, “Treasury officials stressed they did not know the results until March 2013, when the inspector presented a draft.” So, until two months ago, no one could have known anything about the RESULTS of the investigation—only that an investigation was taking place.

This is a scandal?

SHOPT

This is precisely why, especially with Benghazi, most Americans aren’t responding to GOP and conservative efforts to attack Obama. Obama’s faithful opposition has been trying to destroy him since 2007 (and you could probably say 2004, after he gave his DNC speech) when he first declared his candidacy for president. Ever since then, they’ve thrown everything they possibly can at the guy: where’s the birth certificate, release your college records, Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, he’s a secret Muslim, he’s an atheist, black liberation theology, he’s un-American. None of that has stuck. Obama weathered through it all, and he was able to do so mostly because all of that is either a. complete bullshit or b. the GOP and conservatives overplayed their hands before they had all the information. The Fast and Furious scandal should be have been way bigger news. But, when there have been impeachment talks since about a month after Obama was elected (Maddow NAILS IT here), any real opposition tends to be lumped into the existing nonsense opposition. The incessant outrage and indignance from Obama’s detractors gets dull. People start tuning out. It loses its force.

It’s the boy who cried wolf.

Just like now. The GOP just got dealt a KILLER hand. This IRS scandal is a real problem. It’s a potential game-changer for them in their never ending quest to destroy Obama. And what do they do with it? Rather than sticking to the clearly reported facts, they start to make shit up. Over the last three or four days, I’ve been following this story, and everything the right wing media was claiming seemed legitimate. And then I read this article from Breitbart, and my eyes roll back into my skull in horror and disgust at the incompetence or dishonesty of it all.

Plain and simple: the New York Times did not say that the Obama adminstration knew of this “scandal” before the election. They knew of an investigation. Investigations ≠ scandals.

I’m not saying the Obama administration isn’t to blame for this: I’d love to see a full investigation into what happened and who knew what. And if there’s any evidence that this is in any way linked to the Obama administration, or if there’s in any way any evidence which shows that Obama or his administration tried to OBSTRUCT the investigation, then well shit. The GOP finally has themselves a legitimate, undeniable Obama scandal. The GOP and conservatives would do very well by themselves to sit back, shut up, let the facts come out, then attack. This could be what they’ve been waiting for since 2007.

But instead, we get Breitbart’s editors either proving themselves illiterate or revealing themselves as dishonest pageview whores. Keep up the good work, conservatives. Watching you shoot yourselves in the foot, pat each other on the back, and blame Obama for your self-inflicted wounds will continue to be entertaining, even if they’re infuriating at the same time.

Watch as the president, for the second time in his term in office, is interrupted in the middle of giving a speech like no other president has ever been interrupted before.

Joe Wilson, who has the self control of a small child.

First it was Joe Wilson (R-SC) who screamed, “YOU LIE!” at Obama during Obama’s State of the Union address. That had never happened in the recorded history of this country. And, it wasn’t like those “Code Pink” idiots who interrupt Republican politicians during speeches. Let me repeat: Code Pink are a bunch of assholes for the way they go about getting their message into the media. Those are extreme activists. They’re a part of a vast, unsupported minority.

But, when Obama was interrupted during his SotU, that was a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives screaming at the president. It wasn’t some fringe group. It was an officially elected member of the Republican establishment. Sure, he apologized afterwards, but then he went and raised money off of what he did. He raised money off of his disrespect for the president. That’s how sorry he really was.

And now, a few years later, we have another first. Another time the president is interrupted in the middle of a speech. This time, it wasn’t a member of Congress, but it also wasn’t a member of Code Pink or the Tea Party or PETA. It was a “professional reporter” for the hyper-conservative blog “The Daily Caller.” His name is Neil Munro, and he is a professional member of the conservative media. He gets paid to report things that conservatives want to be told. He was given a pass to have the ability to cover the president’s speech, and he used that privilege to disrespect the president by interrupting him mid-speech, just like Joe Wilson did.

Neil Munro, who is as professional as a waiter sneezing into your dinner. Photo outright stolen from NPR.

Whether or not Wilson or Munro are factually correct in their assertions is irrelevant. They may be, but as a politician and a media member respectively, they have to know that the way to disagree is not to be disrespectful. But they seemingly don’t think this president is deserving of the same kind of respect the last 43 presidents have received (I wonder what’s different about this one…?) This is pure disrespect, and it’s not coming from extremist groups who hold up signs at rallies of less than a hundred people. It’s not coming from idiots on Twitter who aren’t educated or civilized enough to form a coherent thought.* It’s coming directly from the conservative establishment. It’s coming directly from the people who are professional representatives of conservatism.

And conservatives have the gall to claim that it is the president who is dividing the country? It’s the elected representatives and the paid professionals of the “right” who are setting the example for inappropriate and disrespectful behavior.

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Mark Levin do nothing but trash the president all day on their radio shows. And you know what? That’s fine. That’s fair game. But, it also sets the stage for these kinds of outbursts which have heretofore not been seen in American politics. One side of the argument is dragging the American media and politics further into the gutter, and it’s people like Joe Wilson and Neil Munro.

Update: Munro and the Daily Caller have published their reaction, and needless to say, it’s laughable. From Munro: ““I always go to the White House prepared with questions for our president. I timed the question believing the president was closing his remarks, because naturally I have no intention of interrupting the President of the United States.”

Watch that video again. There is no way you think Obama is finished, especially given the way Obama speaks. He constantly pauses for effect (and likely to gather his thoughts). And even if he did think Obama was finished, Munro interrupted consistently afterwards. It wasn’t a one time, “Oops, thought you were done. Sorry,” kind of interaction. It was a repeated interruption, so much so that Obama had to remind Munro once that it wasn’t time for questions, and then AGAIN that it wasn’t time for an argument in the middle of the president’s speech. To say he had no intention of interrupting the president is laughable, to say the least.

Then there’s Tucker Carlson’s point about Sam Donaldson and Ronald Reagan. Watch the difference here.

Tucker Carlson, muppet.

Reagan was CLEARLY done. How do we know? Because he said he was going to let someone else (AG Meese) take the podium. That’s what people do when they’ve finished with their remarks. Compare that to Obama, who had simply paused for a moment. For Carlson to even attempt to create an equivalency here is preposterous. Rather than own their mistake and apologize, they’ll double down on it. Why? Because the conservative media has created such a toxic atmosphere for this president that they know they’ll be able to make more money out of insulting him than being respectful. And insulting him to his face? Even better. Pretty soon, just like Joe Wilson, they’ll be selling t-shirts and raising cash. Just pathetic.

In Howard Kurtz’s April 2nd piece (worth a read) about how the conservative media is having a difficult time warming up to Mitt Romney, Rich Lowry (editor of conservative magazine National Review) made a statement I found to be refreshingly honest about the way they view the Obama presidency. Lowry said:

“There’s no question it would be better for everyone’s place in the marketplace to have another Obama term.”

Rich Lowry.

And that’s it. That’s the strength of the conservative media: they’re capitalizing on, and making their money by, trashing a president millions of Americans found repulsive from the day he entered national politics. The job of any media organization is to secure a place for itself in the marketplace. Putting forth ideas and principles is one thing, but the main objective of these media organizations is to make a profit. There are many ways to do that, but Lowry hits on something important here: he would make more money with a second Obama term than he would if Romney (or Santorum [Ha!]) wins.

Why is that?

This is an example of terrorism, apparently.

There is a strain of people in American society who so hate this president that they will devour anything negative said about him. They hate him not for his policies, but simply because of who (or to them, what) he is. Sure, now many of the people who hate Obama point to his “failed policies” or his attack on their freedom or his “Chicago style politics” or other such nonsensical talking points, but this anti-Obama hatred pre-dated his presidency. The irrational hate always existed. He’s a Muslim, he wasn’t born here, he “pals around with terrorists,” he has a radical pastor, he’s a communist, he reads from a teleprompter, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, or the most remarkable and straightforward one: the terrorist fist jab. Whatever the impetus behind that irrationality was, it’s myriad. One aspect of that irrationality, however, is impossible to deny: some, if not much, of the resistance to Obama is due to his race. That’s not to say all conservatives or Republicans are racist, and it’s not to say that all opposition to Obama is at its core racist. Those things are not true. However, it is myopic to deny there are still millions of racists in this country and to deny that they all have a special hate for this black president. If Barack Obama were white, there is no way on the planet that anyone would have thought a “fist bump” was a “terrorist fist jab.” There’s no way that would have happened.

This is just Christmas, apparently.

Given this groundswell of antipathy, some of it racially based, some of it policy based and some of it based in fear, it would have been stupid for conservative websites and conservative politicians not to attempt to capitalize on it.

Very quickly, the conservative media (mirrored by actual politicians in Washington) realized that as long as they disagreed President Obama and attacked everything the president did and everything he said, there was going to be a large part of the population who would support them. These people may not have been in the mainstream, but for internet sites, you don’t need to be part of the mainstream to be able to click on a few links and drive ad revenue. In this case, the fringe is large enough to support the conservative media because the fringe is so incensed with the idea of an Obama presidency. As long as these conservative websites keep up a daily attack on Obama and all of his surrogates, and as long as they don’t alienate the more moderate part of their conservative readership by being openly racist, they will make money. They will generate hits. They’ll be relevant.

So it’s not a surprise that there is unanimity in the conservative media against this president. It’s very easy to play to the fringe by keeping up a constant attack and playing to the most vile aspects of our American politics. Far right conservative websites have grown remarkably over the last few years. The Daily Caller was founded in the middle of this presidency. The Breitbart sites have exploded. The Blaze is brand new.

And all of it is built on one premise: hate the president, make money. Hating Obama isn’t just politics for them; it’s a business.

“There’s no question it would be better for everyone’s place in the marketplace to have another Obama term.”

So, one party has targeted Planned Parenthood, whose existence is to help women take control of their own bodies, and Planned Parenthood gets bombed.

You can disagree with abortion all you want. You can call it evil, immoral, unethical, whatever. But, you need to realize other people disagree with you, and you need to realize that bombs aren’t the answer to disagreements. I can’t believe I even have to write that down. It’s the tactic of cowards. It’s the tactic of terrorists. And if you use a bomb like this, you’re no better than the fanatical Muslims who aim to destroy this country. You’re scum, and you’re an enemy of America.

And if you’re on the Republican or conservative side, you have to make sure you don’t vilify and target an organization to the point where this kind of thing happens. Republicans and conservatives especially, because they have created an absolutely disgusting and poisonous atmosphere for this organization and the MILLIONS of American women it serves, MUST come out and denounce this in no uncertain terms. No equivocating. And if you don’t, you’re as much of a coward as the person (or people) who did this.